


you're a wizard, tim drake

by gothbats



Series: comprehension through atomic structure [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batfamily, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Gen, Harry Potter AU, Mention of major canonical character death, Platonic Relationships, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Tim Drake is Red Robin, emphasis on tries, jason todd has a secret soft spot for his younger brother tim, jason todd is secretly a dork, tim drake loves chemistry, tim drake tries alchemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26227714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothbats/pseuds/gothbats
Summary: “Pssst!” Tim hisses, hanging upside down from a hookshot he may or may have not stolen from Bruce’s toolbelt before scurry out of the cave before Bruce saw and into the night. He taps on the glass again, the drumming the only sound in Gotham, three stories off the ground.“What?!” Jason hisses, swinging his window open after unlatching it and Tim loses his stability, wincing when a hand grabs his wrist and drags him to the ledge of the window.“Do you have a cauldron?” Tim asks.-----or, the harry potter au that nobody asked for.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: comprehension through atomic structure [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904698
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55
Collections: One Word Week (FSG Theme Week)





	you're a wizard, tim drake

**Author's Note:**

> day two: **magic. ******
> 
> this was so fun to write, i'm not even sure i can call this a harry potter au? i love genius tim drake that holds zero brain cells, catch me projecting onto him in this fic. i am a firm believer that jason has probably seen this shit before jason u are mysterious and i love u for that.
> 
> please leave if ur here for ships ur gross!
> 
> i am unsure about dc timelines, it's all a mess, and i dont know much, but this is post-death jason and he's probably in the process of leading the outlaws and reconciling his relationships. idk!! enjoy anyways, please subcribe to this series if u like it and wanna see more!!

“Pssst!” Tim hisses, hanging upside down from a hookshot he may or may have not stolen from Bruce’s toolbelt before scurry out of the cave before Bruce saw and into the night. He taps on the glass again, the drumming the only sound in Gotham, three stories off the ground.

It took plenty of time for the blood rushing to his head to warm his body up from the cold nipping at him through his Robin suit in the dead of the night. Hanging upside while waiting for Jason to open his bedroom window-- or at least have the decency to open his curtain-- had its advantages.

The book in his backpack in question burns a hole through his back, the temptation to leave it behind and forget he ever found it is too strong. He didn’t  _ mean _ to pick it up, but it was like all of his atoms were drawn to it, a marionette controlling his every action pertaining to the book before he could make sense of what he was doing. 

Which is why Jason needs to answer the door before the book in his backpack zaps at him again, the current weak, but enough to alarm him. Maybe on the way here he hid in a dark alleyway and repeated a saying from the book.  _ Maybe _ . But that doesn’t matter now, because once he saw the fog full of green hues that slowly evaporated around him, tendrils like spies emerging from shadows wistfully. 

Tim’s too tired for this shit.

He brings his hand up and takes a breath, ready to beat down on the window in a petulant attempt to get Jason’s attention. He figured Jason would be the most useful in helping him. He hadn’t been able to think of any other reason to beg for Jason’s help at two AM other than the alarming words incessantly reminding him  _ Oh God, oh shit, Bruce is gonna kill me, _ and Tim followed the fucking moonlight away from  _ the weird shit that happened in the alleyway _ to Jason’s safehouse. But Jason beat him to it.

“ _ What?! _ ” Jason hisses, swinging his window open after unlatching it and Tim loses his stability, wincing when a hand grabs his wrist and drags him to the ledge of the window. 

“Do you have a cauldron?” Tim asks, confused, but content with some weird feeling of being protected when Jason pulls him in through the window with his arms hooked under his armpits.

“Hi, to you, too, brat,” Jason says, “What the hell do you need a cauldron for?”

“What, I can’t visit my favorite older brother?” Tim asks like the little shit he is, setting his backpack down with a thud and reaching for his sweatshirt. “Shit, why is it so cold in here?”

“It’s autumn, I forgot to put the space heater on, and I asked you a question,” Jason demands, crossing his arms and staring intently at him. Okay, what. He looks so much like Bruce right now when they’re both fumbling and overthinking in their own heads.

“Okay, so I was walking down Crime Alley,” Tim starts, heading towards the apartment’s kitchen while Jason blinks at him, “I had just fought some petty thieves and sent a report back to the cave when I saw.. the dumpster glowing?”

Tim searches Jason’s face for anything, any indication he’s going to ask him why he approached a glowing dumpster, but he let’s him continue. It’s not like him to be distracted while out as Red Robin, but he settles into the soft black sweatshirt over his suit and continues.

“It was a book. I know how uncompelling this sounds, but JT, the book was  _ glowing _ ,” Tim says, lining the coffee maker basket. He thinks Jason will say something about coffee at 1AM, but instead he pulls out a mug for him instead and rolls his eyes. “I thought I’d bring it back to you. Because after I opened it, some weird stuff--”

“You opened a glowing book in Crime Alley?” Jason asks, and of course  _ that  _ piqued his interest, “Why did you bring it to me?”

Tim grins sheepishly, “I, uh, assumed you’d have experience on that front. Maybe.”

“You want me to read the glowing weird book?”

“Please, yes,” Tim replies too quickly. He really didn’t know how Jason would react to this, but he’d hoped he came to the right brother. “I couldn’t go to the little brat, Dick is an old man, I mean, so are you but not like Dick. And Bruce is out of the equation, I can’t show him this.”

Jason ponders for a second, and Tim turns his abdomen to find where he is staring. The window’s curtains flow and sway, the air full of dancing molecules, and the high pale clouds drift through the sky, and Tim furrows his brows. Before he could figure out why, Jason asks, “You’re not here for files or anything? Were you kicked out?”

“What?” Tim asks, incredulous. He searches for almond milk in the fridge with no luck. Maybe he has some stored in his cupboards. “I’m pretty sure you’d know. If a big occurrence like that happened.”   
  
“So, he knows you’re here?” Jay asks, and Tim just sighs and grows impatient. 

“Why does that matter?”

“I’m-- I don’t think I’m trained for this shit. You’re withholding so much information,” Jason practically thinks out loud while he pulls himself up to sit on the kitchen counters. “You know what, I don’t even care. What are you looking for?”

“Almond milk. Also, in Crime Alley I may or may not have set off some sort of.. spell? Dunno. I read something from the book out loud and then there was smoke everywhere and I ran.”

Tim wishes he had his camera to capture Jay’s face right now, and maybe his own shit-eating grin annoyed Jason because he muttered, “I’m calling B.”

“NO!” Tim shouts, possibly too loudly, and lowers his volume. “It’s really fine. He thinks I’m searching for an apartment right now.”

“At 1AM?” Jason asks, his voice goes up an octave in frustration and curiosity. “You know what? I don’t even care. How bad is it?” 

“I’m really hoping we can tap into some multiverse phenomenon, like that’d be such a cool thing to explain to professor..” Tim cuts himself off, afraid of what Jason would think about him and school. “Hopefully it’s really cool science.”

Jason asks, turning back from the coffee and craning his head curiously towards the backpack. “Can you show me?”

Tim glanced up from his coffee, the first sip full of heat that warms his body up and distracts him from the ping of excitement he feels in his stomach, like the first rain of spring that clears the air, forgetting you exist once you’re so absorbed in a book. 

  
  


Jason is doubled over, laughing from Tim’s request  _ again _ for a cauldron. Or at least any beakers he has in his weird safehouse. His stealthy apartment is now turned over after their search for any household items to aid their expedition, and whatever items Tim has left in his backpack from what he borrowed from his chemistry lab.

He probed Tim too intensely for his knowledge on covalent and ionic bonds while they read the glowing book, asking about the white chemistry textbook he keeps in his backpack. Tim graduated high school last spring and had never been too interested in continuing his education if he didn’t need to. But, Steph convinced him to enroll in a couple of courses this semester at a community college.

He didn’t know how Jason felt about that.

Not that Jason was a deciding factor, or anything. Bruce was supportive. Of course he was, he’s practically his emotionally repressed and unavailable father. He didn’t know how Bruce  _ really _ felt, aside from, ‘I’ll cover the tuition, make sure we know your class schedule to coordinate with Red Robin.’

His older brother’s socked feet pat against the wooden floor while he gathers supplies Tim asks for. The safehouse apartment is threadbare as it is, but he knows this is where Jason keeps a majority of his items outside of the Manor, what was left from  _ before. _ The apartment’s dimly lit by the pale moonlight and the street lamp below the balcony, and the shitty table lamp he bought from an estate sale sat between them and their haphazard pile of scribbled notes.

His brother labeled red solo cups with names, molecular formulas, and metals they’d need while Tim read out loud to him straight from the book, pages ripped from his own textbook, and the magical book stayed sprawled in front of them. Jason’s leg covered by his gray sweatpants stretched out in their pile of work and pressed against his knee, a pressure Tim couldn’t find himself complaining about. It’s like this was a regular occurrence, like Jason had Tim over often and let him study here while Jason planned for missions. But that doesn’t happen.

Tim turned to his older brother, who was scribbling a formula onto a piece of paper he saw from his chemistry textbook. He had been hesitant to ask his brother anything about magic, but he thinks this is what they’re dealing with. The dumpster book’s title is written in another language and Tim swears the word, ‘alchemy,’ is in the title, but Jason seems to be just as excited as he is.

Tim mixes adhesive that Jay had lying around into a beaker, and waits for him to tell him what to do next. The anxious feeling in his chest subsides, because Jason hasn’t kicked him out yet or dragged him by his sweater for daring to bring anything magic related to his apartment.

He really did think this through. He didn’t want Jason to have flashbacks to any magic-related trauma, like the fucking lazarus pit, but he seemed to light up at the pile of notes they’ve written. This is the most excited he’s felt in a long time. Jason is a living ID, and it isn’t that he doesn’t have a concept of morality and danger, it’s that he embraces it. 

He trusts Jason with this. 

He’s also terrified of the fact that he thoroughly enjoys this as much as Jason does.

“Okay, if we’re going to do this,” Jason starts, lifting himself up from the floor, “we’re going to try it one something first. You said it’s alchemy right?”

“Mhm.”

“So.. we can do Spagyric.”

  
  


The potted plant that was forgotten in the corner of the apartment is their first test subject. Tim sets up his phone camera, tries to straighten the haphazard pile of notes, and can hear Jason practically vibrating with excitement. Jason, a highly; trained vigilante and assassin, could be a little unpredictable. 

Like, unpredictable when he suggested plant magic. Combining healing properties. Jason has a  _ plant _ in his apartment, so his research did him justice; this must be the apartment Jason lives in frequently if he could take care of a plant.

With heavy feet, Jason trotted to his room, interrupting their setup. Whatever. Tim could do this on his own. It’ll be exactly like his chemistry labs, except with no manual and no professor constantly hovering over your shoulder to make sure the extremely diluted chemicals do not mix and cause an explosion or burn his hand,  _ again. _

Who could blame him? He may be a Robin, he may have this secret legacy, but during his lectures he’s exhausted. He stays up for a couple of days at a time studying for his exams and finding information on any Gotham criminals alongside Bruce. He can’t really complain.

Tim would never admit the comfort and relief that washed over him once Jason came back into the living room, a few items in tow in his arms. The confusion must be written all over his face, he really should work on that around Jason. He’s never one to initiate arguments unless provoked, but he can sense his brother may be uncomfortable with his confusion and mistake it as judgement.

He ungracefully leans down and rests on one knee, the floor creaking under his weight, he drops each item gathered in his arms and watches them roll around. Tim had forgotten how broad and full of muscle his brother is now because he should not have been able to carry all of this without his ridiculous muscles carrying weight. 

Tim can’t help but compare his own muscle mass to him, and he wonders what the hell he’s been up to these last few months, and the last year. He’s sure Jason is bigger than Bruce now.

Tim, in all his glory, is ready to burst into laughter and Jason must have a sixth sense and glares at him when he notices Tim staring, staring at the-- Tim can’t control himself. He thinks Jason is going to lunge at him for even daring to lift his brows before he schooled his reaction, but he’s not even breathing anymore. He should be more scared, but he catches his own laugh in the back of his throat. It’s in a rectangular box, a long one, with letters inscripted on one side of the box in cursive, and one end of the box has a white sticker with gold detailing for his  _ Ollivander wand _ .

Jason Peter Todd owns a fucking Ollivander Wand.

Like, his older brother Jason,  _ the _ Red Hood, owns a magical interactive wand from Harry Potter World. The Adopted son of Batman, menace of Gotham, the Red Hood, owns a Harry Potter Wand.

Realization dawns upon him.

“Jay,  _ please _ bring out the robe.”

“You’re such a little fucking shit,” Jason growls, shoving the items, including the precious wand that;s out of the box to scatter around the room. Tim lunges to catch each item and to save their cups of their homemade chemicals to stop from spilling. 

“Jay, I’m sorry!” Tim can’t breathe, his shoulders shake, and his smile is plastered across his face. The victory of seeing his older brother act like a child, feels like honey, warmth in a mug of tea. Jason had his childhood snatched from him, and Tim hopes Jason feels the softness of cotton, like a meadow at sunrise, and deserves to feel the tenderness of life, not the crippling reality he’s lived through. “ _ Please _ . Let me see your Slytherin robe.”

“Make fun of my fucking wand and robe and you’ll see what happens, you demon,” Jay lunges towards, and he thinks he sees the wite light above him and he accepts his fate of death before he realizes Jason holds back. He holds back to  _ tickle him _ , like he’s a goddamn child. Jason’s insufferable, he’s a twenty-two year old tickling his little brother because of his Harry Potter merchandise.

Is this how Damian feels?

“You brought your pathetic textbook, your pathetic glowing dumpster book into  _ my  _ apartment, so I will bring out my fucking Harry Potter wand if I please. Don’t make me pull the orphan card, you shattered my feelings.”

“Jay, all of us can all pull the orphan card,” Tim argues, and he knows in this moment he wouldn’t trade anything for the smile on his face, he sees old family photos in Jason’s face, hoping his feeling of happiness isn’t ephemeral. “Now give me the wand and the lighter fluid. I have an idea.”

“Just give me a warning if you’re feeling murderous, because why else would you need a spellbook, a lighter, and a wand,” Jason mumbles, yet abides by Tim’s requests. Jason really is as vexed as he is. “This is insane. What are we actually doing?”

Tim took a deep breath, brought his shoulders up, because this really is ridiculous. But he’s still going to try it. “How do you think we should activate the wand? I just said something out loud in the alleyway and then there was green mysterious fog everywhere.”

“That’s just Gotham,” Jason groans, and Tim feels like he’s losing him. Shit, okay, he needs to get him interested again. For whatever reason, maybe a gift from the universe itself, he’s even held Jason’s attention for the past hour he’s been here. “I— I actually think I’m losing it. I’m letting  _ you _ into my apartment, I’m so exhausted I don’t have the energy to sharpen my knives right now, I’m really fucking playing Wizard with you.”

Tim really should smother his grin, because Jason Peter Todd has knives, and he may be his favorite younger brother but if Jason really thinks this next spell will work, maybe he’s as delusional as their bat of a father.

Tim may have completely forgotten Jason Todd is an assassin, possibly hiding from a mission now, but he’s stayed alive this long. He’s smart, he’ll get himself out of anything.  _ If _ they do accomplish world-altering, scientific reasoning, phenomenon, maybe a deity really is watching over them. Is Tim going to discover the multiverse? Maybe he fucking will.

“Okay, JT, I’m going to use _inc--”_ Tim whispers and is really about to lose his shit, his jaw drops, Jason yells at him to shut the fuck up, he nearly leaped across the apartment from the volume of his older brother’s voice, maybe they were both delusional and under some sort of illusion. Maybe Harley Quinn was in that alleyway, or maybe Jason put a sedative in his coffee to get him to fucking sleep and not bother him and he’s possibly out of it right now, but the _fucking_ _wand is flickering with flames_.

Okay, hold on,  _ that’s kinda cool. _

Jason seems like he’s on the verge of disintegrating from awe on the spot, but he gently grabs the wand from him and Tim’s never seen a flicker so bright in Jason’s eyes, a kindling of hope. He hasn’t known Jason long, and this might be their second time hanging out together, ever, since Jason came back. He knows just how much he means to Bruce, but doesn’t completely understand their dynamic. But, if Dick refers to him as his brother, then Tim can, too. And Damian.

He remembers all the nights as Robin, the void Jason left when he.. when he was gone. He doesn’t;t want to think about Jason being six feet under, even if he hadn’t known him before. Tim had wishes, countless times, he could just talk to Jason. Fill the Robin shoes he left. Ask how he did it.

But, coming back.. Tim didn’t expect anything from him. Though, there was a feeling of imposition coming from his end whenever he wanted to get to know him. Jason kept his distance for a reason. 

Maybe Jason deserved to be back at the Wayne Manor, back with their family. What’s left of them. A family acting as if everything is always okay, and Tim had never known if he’d get along with him. It was unfair to have any expectations, but he couldn’t help it. 

The least he can do now is to share this memory with Jason, just the two of them. This can be their thing. Jason let Tim in, and he probably sees him as an annoying pest and doesn’t want to be on the wrong side of the family, their family, tonight felt like he was surrounded by only good, comforting things. Jason’s presence isn’t nervous around him, like he senses from him when all of the family is together. He’s reserved, but a curiosity floats out of him like the rain falling from clouds. 

There are childlike glimpses in Jason, because the years he was gone he was  _ gone. _

Tim wants to grab Jason by metaphorical shoulders and shake him, promising him that he’s okay. Sometimes he wonder if Jason even knows that he  _ is _ a part of the family, he isn’t an outcast or black sheep. 

The longer they read random spells from the book, recall spells from their memories from Harry Potter, the more Jason came to life.

Jason is intelligent, it’s brutal. They whispered  _ incendio  _ at the same time, a flame flickering at the end of the wand.

Tim’s never felt closer to his brother than now.

They take Batarangs, swords, and spare weapons off the wall, willing them to levitate off the ground. Tim holds a sword above ground, and Jason holds the wand and the alchemy, glowing magic book to the advanced spells chapter.

“We need our feathers!” Jason says, and Tim swears to God he’s in a nightmare and almost drops the sword when he snickers.

“ _ Wingardium Leviosa, _ ” Jason huffs in the worst British accent known to the universe, and Tim screams following suit, because his fucking hand is flying wherever Jason points the stupid wand, and he shouldn’t have all of this power, and at least the wand didn’t set him on fire,

“Jay!” Tim shouts, “Drop my hand!”

The sword clatters to the ground, and Tim can’t even be mad at him because his hand is flying in the air and he hopes his body doesn’t follow suit. 

“Why the fuck did that work?” Jason asks, bewildered, “I really took a spell from whatever the last Harry Potter movie I watched, and why did it work?”

“Please, put me  _ down _ ” Tim begs, willing the desperacy laced in his voice to remain unnoticed. 

“Hey, kid, you know what this means, right?” Jason asks, delicately holding the wand and letting go of his hand.  _ Tim swears it isn’t some placebo effect. _ “Go get the broomstick in my closet.”

“No fucking way!” Tim screeches, already lunging towards the front entrance of the apartment to open the closer door next to his front-end table and front door. “I’m doing the spell on you, Jay, I almost shredded my hand with the fucking sword!”

“You’re a wizard, Timothy!” Jason calls to Tim, reveling in the sight of fear that plasters his face once the broom is in his hand, and Tim begins to wonder if he has ever followed directions in his life, or if he was always a wild card. 

Being airborne is like watching a plane in flight, flying in bird’s eye view, and feeling like a comet, born out of dust, rock, and ice. He feels like he’s glowing, and Jason fucking follows suit and leaps off the balcony’s edge and it works, they’re both flying.

They shouldn’t be allowed to, but Tim’s mouth hangs open in adoration and watches his brother behind him, flying on a Goddamn swiffer mop. It’s different from using a hookshot, much different. It’s different than being wrapped in Bruce’s arms while he leaps from a roof’s ledge, his cape gaining momentum from potential energy, the kinetic and gravitational forces sending them  _ plunging _ , a tickle low in his belly and his chest tightens in anticipation, but Bruce keeps him safe. Bruce never commented on the beam on Tim’s face the first time they jumped off a building ledge and were in flight from the large Batman cape, he buried his face in Bruce’s chest before even daring to turn to the sight of lit-up office buildings and faint glows of on-ground restaurants and shops, missing the lopsided grin on Bruce’s face.

Tim cranes his head to Jason, who followed suit and caught up to his pace, and Jason’s mouth twitched up in a grin. He could take this adventure with him in open arms, over and over again. Tim’s the first to crash-land into the ground and stumbles on the ground, Jason does the same and crashes into Tim, and they lay breathlessly on the street below Jason’s apartment, he doesn’t care if he’s taking a majority of the brute force and backfires from their alchemy, chemical, spell-filled night.

  
  


If Tim falls asleep on the couch that night, slumped over against the armrest with a throw pillow under his ribs of the loveseat he and Jason shared to watch Harry Potter on his laptop, well, he’d never tell anyone. Especially that Jason runs warm and is comfortable to lean against, he’d never tell his other brothers, secretly keeping this older brother for himself. 

The fierce cold has him curled up under his hoodie, the biting winds nipping at him hours later from using a broomstick for his first flying lesson with fucking Madam Hooch around the Gotham nieghborhood, because if they were caught who the fuck would notice or say anything, on a loveseat that’s softer than Tim would’ve pictured. They light candles that Jason probably got from the fucking Halloween seasonal corner store, because they smell like shit but they’re warm and they place some on one empty wall to pretend it’s a fireplace, and Jason has a fucking fuzzy rug under the couch, a neatly placed coffee table with a mini pumpkin sitting on top of a mat for his oak table.

A Safehouse, Tim’s ass.

They had eaten a late dinner like frat boys before Jason draped a soft throw blanket that was neatly folded over the back of the couch and headed to his room.

It’s a memory he’ll keep safe in a locket, stored away in his bedroom with a nice note and he’ll fill it with stardust, because it’s all goodness and magical and child-like. Sometimes it’s just lonely at Manor, it’s kind of him and Damian when they’re not arguing. Alfred’s a comfort in the home, as well. Bruce is Bruce, he’s trying his best to be a good dad and gets lost in his own head. But this, Tim could get used to it. 

He’d never imagined himself to be so pink and glowy, and he hopes Jason felt the same, but today he felt more like a baby blue color, and he hopes he was able to put this feeling in place, to be a refuge in a sea of nightmares, today was a sea of dreams. It’s an exponential process, he knows it, and Tim assumed before he was just an imposition in their lives, a burden, a child to seemingly replace Jason, Robin. An uneasy family reconciliation is emerging, and has been for months, and years. 

Tim Drake-Wayne is grateful for the simplicity of being able to be near each other tonight, for Jason to embark on a stupid quest with him, he’s less performstive than usual tonight.

He falls asleep to thinking of chemical bonds, alchemy bonds, and the concept of familial warmth he’s too tired to figure out right now, he doesn’t want their familial bond to be metaphorical from being lead and blooming to gold, gold between them, an elusive language for the two of them to write themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading and stay tuned for the rest of the prompts!! i'm trying to post as many prompts as i can for the one week event.
> 
> i have college brain rot whatever science is mentioned in here is just me trying to teach myself ochem through this fic and yes i said alchemy and did spells WJJFBSBDHW i’m tired
> 
> please leave (nice) comments and kudos !!
> 
> my [ twitter](https://twitter.com/batvrse) and [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spideysforce)
> 
> \- jay <3


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